Big’s fingers find the spot, run across his sweaty skin. “Just a mole,” he says, relief evident in the way he breathes out as he says it.
“Good,” Skye says. “I was worried.”
“Now eat your food!” Big repeats, stomping through the doors.
“What was that all about?” I ask Skye.
“Nothin’,” she says. “Just havin’ a bit of fun. When we were brought in, the big fella was goin’ on and on ’bout this flesh eatin’ fungus that’s been goin’ ’round. Seems the only thing he’s scared of. Just wanted to put that fear to the test.”
~~~
There’s not much else to do other than talking, sometimes as a group, sometimes broken up into separate conversations. A coupla of times I move to the front of my cell, stick my head out the bars, look up and down the row, hoping to get another look at one of the others—okay, okay, Skye mostly—but none of them are ever doing the same. Well, except for Buff, who seems to be doing the same thing, except his eyes are always on the cell I suspect belongs to the song-voiced one they call Wilde.
When I make a rude gesture he slinks back into his cell.
So I just sit there, arms draped over the bars, waiting. For Wes. For anybody.
I picture how it’ll be when we’re reunited with Jolie, how her smile will fill up my heart, how she’ll wrap her arms around me and I’ll swing her in a circle.
There’s movement to my left, from the cell next to mine. The girl sticks her head out. Skye’s sister, Siena. She glances my way, smiles a rather pretty smile, and then leans as far to the edge in the other direction as possible, as if I might have the Cold and share it with her. I frown, perplexed as to her strange anti-me behavior, but then a pair of strong arms reaches out from the cell beyond hers. She’s barely able to reach them, to grasp them, to hold them. There’s something so tender, so longing, so loving in the simple touch I witness, between Siena and Circ, that I feel a yearning in my own heart. Not for anyone in particular, certainly not for any of my exes, not even for Skye—although she has captured my interest—but just for a connection to someone like the one I see between Skye’s sister and the Heater boy.
As they continue to hold hands, they whisper to each other, laugh, whisper some more, laugh some more. Everything seems so easy for them, like one was made for the other. Like they never had a choice. Almost like destiny. As I pull back into my cell, I’m left wondering if it’s always been that way for them.
~~~
“Psst! Skye!” I hiss through the hole in the wall.
Everything’s dark. A few hours back, Big stomped through the dungeon extinguishing all the torches. Everyone’s sleeping. I should be sleeping. But I can’t, not without clearing something up first.
“Psst!” I hiss again.
“Sun goddess sear it, Icy! This’d better be good.” I can sense her face at the hole, her lips turned into a frown that could kill.
I smile in the dark.
“I’ve got something to say,” I whisper.
“Well, out with it, Icy.”
“Dazz,” I say.
“That’s what you wanted to say? To tell me yer name agin?”
“Nay, nay, I’m just saying call me Dazz. In ice country, icy means…”
“Spit it out, Icy. I’m tired.”
“Attractive,” I say.
“And yer not?” she asks. Is she asking me? Is she saying I am…icy? What is she saying? “An icy Icy,” she whispers, floating the words off her tongue. It’s the gentlest I think I’ve ever heard her voice sound.
“Uh,” I say.
“Yer smoky, Dazz,” she says, my name sounding strange coming from her. “But that ain’t nothin’ where I come from. Not that I mind a-lookin’ sometimes.”
I almost choke on the wad of spit that’s congealing in my throat. I’ve never had a woman be so…honest with me. Not that women aren’t honest, a lot of them are, too honest sometimes, but Skye seems to say every last thought that pops into her head. It’s exhilarating in a way, although I couldn’t imagine doing the same. If I said half the things floating around in my brain right now, she’d probably never speak to me again.
“Now, are we done, or are we done?” she says. “This feather-hard floor is callin’ my name.”
“Wait,” I say. “Nay, there was something else.”
“Well then hocker it up like the lump that always seems to be in yer throat.”
Heart of the Mountain, is she reading my thoughts now, too? I gotta get control of things again, if I ever had control of them in the first place. “Look, I just wanted you to know that I’m usually a better fighter. I really was surprised when you turned around and found out you were a—”
“A woman. I know. Full of curves and a mix of hard and soft spots and all the things that guys git all wooloo over. But even if I hadn’ta been a woman, or if you weren’t surprised and all that, I’da still’ve beat you redder’n the fire country sky. You can count on that, Icy.”
My jaw drops and I try to lift it back up but it’s dead weight. I’m thankful it’s dark and she can’t see me. “Now wait just a minute, you’ve never even seen me fight. I’ve been in more scraps in the last week than you’ve probably seen your entire life.”
“I ain’t tryin’ to compete, Dazzy. I’m just sayin’ truths, which can be hard to hear sometimes. Sleep on it and you’ll feel much better in the mornin’.”
Sleep on it? You bet your cute little arse I’ll sleep on it. And I’ll prove to her one way or the other that I can hold my own in a fight. Certainly better than Feve, who’s probably who she’s comparing me to.
“G’night, icy Dazz,” she says, completely disarming me. I lay down with my own shoulder and arms as a pillow, not thinking about proving that I can fight, but about whether she meant icy with a capital or lowercase “i”, smiling like a butcher’s sled dog.
~~~
Boredom sets in pretty hard the next day. People are used to having the right to come and go as they please, so if you take that right away from them, they get bored very quickly. At least I do.
All of us seem energized after sleeping, though, and when morning comes—in the form of a pathway of torches lit by a lumbering Big, still shirtless and so meaty he looks capable of feeding a village of cannibals for a month—everyone’s ready to talk some more. Buff, being Buff, suggests a game of sorts.
“I’ve got some rocks that broke off the floor,” Buff says. “I toss one to whoever I please, and I get to ask them a question.”
“A question ’bout what?” Skye hollers down the row.
“Anything,” Buff says. “Whatever I want. And the person who’s got the rock has to answer, and when they do, they get to throw the rock to someone else and ask their own question.”
“What’re we, a bunch of game-lovin’ Midders tryin’ to figure out which boy thinks they’re smoky?” Skye says.
I laugh, starting to catch onto the fire country lingo.
I make a suggestion. “We’ll play Buff’s little game, but let’s stick to questions about fire or ice country.”
“’Specially blaze about Goff, the Cure, and the Glassies,” Skye suggests.
“I’m bored already,” Feve says.
“You shut it,” Siena says, which makes me smile. I’d love to get a glimpse into whatever history there is between those two.
“I’m in,” Circ says.
“It might help us figure things out,” Wilde adds.
“Right,” Buff says. “First rock’s for Wilde.” Surprise, surprise.
There’s scuffling and scraping as everyone moves to the front of their cells. I stick my head out and purposely look left first, so as to not be so obvious about how icin’ bad I want to look in Skye’s direction. Siena’s head pops out but she looks at Circ, who’s grinning at her. Feve’s on the opposite side, his bare chest sliced by shadows and markings. He’s staring at me like if he looks hard enough he might kill me with just his eyes. Further down the row, Wilde’s next to Feve,
and she’s looking my way, but past me, I guess at Skye.
Don’t look. Don’t look.
Not yet. Too obvious.
Buff’s at the end of the hall, sort of looking at everyone, but definitely favoring Wilde’s direction.
Don’t look—
—how can I not look?—
—don’t. Really, don’t.
I look.
I mean for it to be a quick, nonchalant glance, just to see that she’s there, but she’s looking right at me, a smile tugging at the corners of the lips I’ve gotten to see the most of over the last day. I don’t blush this time, not one bit, just look back, meeting her eyes, feeling something akin to excitement rush through my chest.
She’s not icy, like we thought. Nay, her beauty goes far beyond a word like that, which suddenly seems so childish, so ordinary. And she is anything but ordinary. With deep, brown eyes that seem to collect every last flicker of torchlight, strong high cheekbones that fit her right-sized nose and full lips so perfectly, she’s a brown-skinned angel, delicate and strong, soft and hard—and grinning.
I’ve been staring a while.
“Mornin’, icy Dazz,” she says, soft enough so only I can hear.
“Morning, beautiful Skye,” I say, shocking myself at my own boldness.
Skye’s grin fades and I can tell I’ve surprised her too, which is some feat, considering she’s seemed one step ahead from the very beginning.
When Buff says, “Catch, Wilde!” she looks past me, and the moment is broken. I turn, too, and watch as Buff chucks the stone awkwardly through the bars. To his credit, it goes in the general direction of Wilde, skipping across the stone and resting in front of her cell, where she picks it up. She looks at Buff, her long black hair draped behind her.
“Ahem.” Buff clears his throat. “Wilde, my lady, what are the three most important qualities you look for in a guy?”
Chaos follows the question. I’m laughing, unable to help it. Feve’s protesting, yelling something about the childishness of Icers. Siena and Circ are holding hands and more or less just shaking their heads. And Skye’s screaming the most, saying things like “…burnin’ not what we agreed,” and “…searin’ wooloo Icies.”
Wilde, however, raises a hand, instantly silencing everyone, including me, as I suddenly find myself unable to laugh. “Truth, honor, wisdom,” she says, answering.
There’s silence for a moment, and then I say, “Sorry, Buff, oh for three.”
Laughter fills the dungeon, Buff’s being the loudest of all as he nods his head. I catch a glance from Feve and it’s not filled with animosity. He’s not laughing exactly, but he’s not glaring or frowning or shooting eye-daggers, so I guess it’s a win.
Skye’s laughing, too, which makes me smile even bigger. Score one for the funny man.
We all stop, however, when the door barges open and Big sticks his thick head in. “What the freeze is goin’ on in here! Shut yer gruel-eaters ’fore I shut ’em for you!” He slams the door and there’s a lot of hands over mouths, as people try not to laugh.
“Now, can we stick to the rules?” Wilde says.
Buff nods sheepishly.
Right away, Wilde turns down the row and says, “Dazz,” bouncing the rock along the floor. It skitters to my feet and stops against my toe. I look up expectantly. What will the wise Wilde leader ask me?
“What are you not telling us?” she asks.
Chapter Twenny
I bite my lip. I’ve told them most everything, but not one of the most important things. They might already know all about it—but then again, they might not. And who am I to be the one to tell them? On the other hand, who am I to keep it from them?
I decide on a more neutral approach, seeing if I can draw what they know out of them.
“My sister was taken,” I say.
Silence and stares.
“I’m sorry, I left it out because—well, I don’t know why. Just because it’s personal, I guess. Her name’s Jolie, she’s twelve years old, and someone took her away, abducted her in the middle of the night. I couldn’t stop them, I couldn’t—” My voice breaks and I look at the ground, at the rock at my feet. Failure written all over me. Plain as day for Skye to see. I couldn’t even protect my own little sister.
“Who took her?” Wilde asks softly.
A second question. Do I have to answer? Should I answer? Can I answer?
“I don’t know for sure,” I say, “but I think…”
I grab the rock, skid it across Siena’s cell, all the way to Circ’s. “How can the Heaters send their children to King Goff?” I ask, with no attempt to keep the venom outta my voice. I feel heat rising everywhere. My fists clench and I feel my old friend, my temper, urging me to hit something, anything. So much for our fun, laughter-filled game. Maybe we should’ve stuck to Buff’s type of questions.
“What?” Circ says.
“What the scorch are you talkin’ ’bout, Icy?” Skye says. There’s no question it’s a capital I in Icy this time.
My eyes meet hers, but there’s no anger in them. Or truth. She has no clue what I’m talking about. I scan the faces of the other prisoners and find the same thing in all of them. Confusion. They’re as clueless as I was not that long ago. They don’t know an icin’ thing about any of it, which is a huge relief, because if they did…well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be something I could forgive. Says the man who delivered the children to the king.
I sigh, close my eyes, feeling the heat leave me.
Eyes closed, I tell them everything I left out the last time.
~~~
When I finish, there’s complete silence. Dungeon master Big would be proud.
When I open my eyes, I expect everyone to be looking at me, just staring. Hating me. For being the messenger. For not doing anything to stop it. For delivering—actually being a part of taking—the children to Goff.
But they’re not. They’re looking off into nothing. At the walls, at the floor, at the ceiling. None of them speaking or doing much. Just waiting, as if maybe I’ll say, “Ha! I got you, didn’t I?” But I can’t say that, as much as I wish I could.
Finally, Wilde speaks. “Goff took your sister. Jolie.” It’s not a question.
I nod, tired of speaking.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“What’s he doing with the kids?” Feve asks. I shake my head, feeling more and more helpless. “You don’t know?”
“No one does,” Buff says, coming to the rescue. “Not even those close to the king. It’s a big mystery.”
I remember that it’s Skye and Siena’s father who’s as much to blame as anyone. I look at Skye first, but she must have something mighty interesting on her thin, leather shoe, because she’s studying it with both her eyes. So I look at Siena, who feels me looking, and turns her head. There’s a tear in her eyes, just hanging there, as if it’s not strong enough to make it over the edge of her eyelid.
“That’s what he was doing for the Cure?” she says. It’s a question, but I don’t think she’s expecting an answer, so I don’t say anything. She wipes away the weak tear with the back of her hand, then slams it into her other palm, as if smashing it. “I always wondered what’d be enough to trade for some of the Cure. Some tug meat ain’t nothing. Guarding the border? It made sense when we thought there was no Fire in ice country, when maybe fear of it spreading would make the king give a lot for a little. But now it makes sense, in a knocky kinda way. If Goff wanted little kids for some reason, then he’d pay anything for them, even the Cure. No wonder my father was so obsessed with reproducing.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Siena sighs. “He was so focused on girls growing up and having children,” she says. “He told us it was for the good of the tribe, to ensure our numbers didn’t dwindle. But really…” Her voice fades away in an echo.
“He wanted more available to trade.
“We still don’t know why he wants them though,” Circ says, reaching over
and grabbing Siena’s hand.
“Free labor,” Buff says. “Servants, young and fresh and moldable.”
That’s the theory we’ve been working under, but even as he says it, I know it’s a weak one. Why would the most powerful man in ice country need to kidnap servants when he can buy anyone he wants? “I don’t think that’s it anymore,” I say, wishing I didn’t have to say it. I can’t think about other possibilities—not now. Not when I’m so close to finding my sister.
“Then what?” Siena says.
I don’t answer.
No one answers, because we’re all thinking the same thing: something sick, something twisted. An addiction of sorts involving little kids. My throat fills with bile.
“Don’t think about all that,” Skye says suddenly. My eyes flick to hers, relieved to hear her speak, although I’m not sure why. “What I wanna know is where my fath—where Roan got the Heater kids.”
“He just took them,” I say. I sense something behind her words, something I’m missing. “Kids go missing and life moves on,” I add, knowing full well it doesn’t.
“Yeah, he took ’em alright,” Skye agrees, “but they didn’t just go missin’. We had lots of girls go missin’, but they were always older, like Siena and me when we ran away, fifteen, sixteen years old. Never heard of any disappearin’ kids.”
“Skye’s righter’n rain,” Siena says. “The only time we ever lost kids was in accidents or early Fire, but they always died…” Her words hang in the air like a dirty piece of laundry blown off the clothesline, just before it’s swept away by the wind.
“How old did you say the kids looked?” Feve asks.
I shrug. “I dunno. Seven, maybe eight.”
Skye curses. What am I missing?
“Oh, sun goddess,” Siena says, her voice a whisper so soft I wouldn’t know she said it if I didn’t see her lips move.